Blogito ergo sum! Actually, as N.T. Wright averred, "'Amor, ergo sum:' I am loved, therefore I am." Among other things, I am a Roman Catholic deacon. This is a public cyberspace in which I seek to foster Christian discipleship in the late modern milieu in the diakonia of koinonia and in the recognition that "the Eucharist is the only place of resistance to annihilation of the human subject."

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Monday, February 2, 2009

Acedia, me, and Kathleen Norris

It is no secret to people who know me that the end of last year was a struggle for me. I owe writer Kathleen Norris, and deceased poet W.H.Auden, enormous debts of gratitude for helping to rescue me from myself. I posted something from Auden that so beautifully captures the anti-climactic feeling that end of the Christmas holiday always brings, even from the time of being very young.

More than Auden's poetry, Norris' book Acedia & Me was a life raft. At a very human level it helped to me to realize, yet again, that my situation is not as unique as I like to flatter myself by thinking that it is. I was familiar with some of her other books, like Cloister Walk and Amazing Grace. I have not read either book. I almost read Cloister Walk after reading about it in Donald Miller's lovely book Blue Like Jazz, but did not. I still have a copy on my shelf. I came across Acedia & Me quite providentially.

5 comments:

A friend gave me, as a stay-at-home dad, a copy of Norris's The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work." That little book is a treasure and it also deals quite extensively with acedia.

"The Cloister Walk" is a beautiful and beautifully accessible book -- a perfect companion for a monastic retreat! But be careful. Once inside the walls with that book, you may not want to come out. :-)

Reading alone, as Norris so pain-stakingly points out, won't do it- the Acedia and Me is a great book. Perhaps it sounds a little pedestrian, but only because it is such a challenge, but engaging with others, serving others, is the way out, as parents service to our children, really engaging them, like playing with them and abandoning ourselves to the game, the project, the moment works for me.

Activity, like going for a vigorous walk, getting some work done, also help. At the end of the day, what we are expressing is a need, our need for meaning, for purpose, which only Christ can meet. So, these activities can't be distractions from what is bothering us, but ways of opening ourselves to Him through our engagement with and service of others.

About Me

I am husband and Dad to six lovely children. I am also a Roman Catholic deacon of the Diocese of Salt Lake City. I married in 1993, became a Dad for the first time in 1994 and most recently in 2011 (quite a spread). I was was ordained in 2004. After serving as a deacon for 11 years at The Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City (8 years before I was ordained for a total of 19 years), I am now assigned to St Olaf's Parish in Bountiful, Utah. I am a graduate of the University of Utah and the Institute in Pastoral Ministry at St. Mary's University of Minnesota. I am currently a candidate for a Doctorate in Ministry (D.Min) at Mount Angel Seminary, Oregon.

Madeleine Delbrêl

"We fashion the immortal being we are through our choices. Through our choices we bring the man in us to the fullness of life or to the worst of human suffering. At the hour of his death each human being has become either a person who will live with God forever, or who will be without God forever" Madeleine Delbrêl

St. Paul

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom. 12:1-2)

Two men I greatly admire

BXVI w/ Abp Rowan

C.S. Lewis

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one'” Lewis